During the Second Watch of the Night, the Buddha saw the interdependence
of all life, and the commonality of awareness and suffering
shared by all sentient beings.

The beginning meditation of the Second Watch of the Night starts with
an effort to understand the
most elementary forms of consciousness. It then proceeds up through more
complex species to the human, and then beyond to the disembodied
area, and the realms of beings who inhabit the
other five worlds of the Buddhist cosmology.

The meditation, which begins with the most elementary forms of life,
has much in common with the Jain religion, which has meditations which
focus on identification with various species of tiny and invisible
creatures. The first species to explore is an invisible water plant with
only one sense, that of attraction and repulsion. It is pulled towards the
light and away from darkness. It is the very beginning of the meditation of
the second watch which seeks to understand a broad range of beings -
from the simplest to the most complex forms of awareness.

The meditation begins by instinctual attraction to the light, and expands into
consciousness motion,
so that a path may be chosen toward the light. It continues as
the development of body consciousness, and the transformations the body
may undergo. Eventually, one moves from water creatures to land
creatures, and air creatures. Awareness of eating, digestion, and
excretion is studied. More complex senses develop - sight for surfaces,
hearing for distance, smell for inner structure, and touch for contact.
Experience the development of each of these. This is animal
consciousness. Understand the different states of sentient beings
(plant, fish, reptile, bird, nonhuman mammal, human).

As stated earlier, the descriptions provided here are only a
basic summary of the
meditative process, which is directed by a Yidam or guide. We will
therefore not go into as much detail as to how each meditation on different
forms of life proceeds as we did
during the earlier Jivamala practice.

However,
to provide an example, we will focus on bird consciousness. The feeling and
structure of this kind of consciousness is difficult to render into words
but the following abbreviated stream-of-consciousness style
notes may give a hint as to how such
meditation unfolds. The notes for herbivorous birds are given first
and followed by some notes for meat-eating
birds:

Spatial orientation is central to everything. One cannot be too low, near
trees and cliffs, or too high, or one will be vulnerable to predators.
Predators above, below and on all sides much be watched. There is
awareness of a network, the places other birds of the same species are
located, but its importance varies. At certain times, all must fly together,
and a center must be found that all are aware of which allows the group
fly together in a loose but organized formation.

There are different senses. Gravity is one and there are feelings of
different orientations to it. There is a remote sense of the feel of
objects at a distance but it is not tactile. There is smooth and rough air,
and peaks and valleys in the winds.
Sight is calculation rather than enjoyment,
shades of gray with the black of danger as objects come too close. There
is no taste but there is the subtle smells of bugs to catch and food to find.
Hearing is calculation of the wind's whistles and leaves rustling.

For birds of prey, there is instinct but there is also desire and intensity
of purpose. There is anticipation of struggle, shown in tension rather than
reflection. There is fighting for independence and dominance. Hiding places
must be large enough, branches strong enough, mates must perceive the world in
similar ways and be able to share each other's space. Winds must be strong and
continuous. Eating is having ability at fight and flight, and being able to find
the way through invisible lines of orientation.

The focus in these meditations is the clarity and precision
of the form of awareness
being experienced, and the ability to identify strongly with
that form of awareness.

The important thing here is to realize the broad range of cultures
and beings with which the person can sympathize and strive to understand
during the Second Watch of the Night.

The Second Watch of the Night practice can take months and years
as the individual takes a panoramic tour of the universe discovering
a common bond with many physical and nonphysical beings
or forms of awareness. It represents a great enlargement of awareness
where learning takes place without the use of the normal senses, and the
individual's identity is stretched and expanded to encompass
areas beyond the normal realm of human experience.

One of the conclusions that can be drawn from
the second watch is that non-human
consciousness has many commonalities with human consciousness.
Both contain desire, fear, the instinct for survival, the movement of
awareness from consciousness of change to consciousness of free choice,
and the movement from the simplicity of
inclination to the complexity of strategy. At all levels of complexity,
we have awareness - the state to which the person returns at enlightenment.
The difference is that in that return to enlightened awareness,
the field of awareness is much broader.

It is this shared awareness that gives rise to true sympathy with living
beings, and thus a suitable moral system. The intensity of desire of the
infant differs only
in degree with the desire of an animal, and the only human uniqueness
is the degree of individual self reflection and the ability to store
knowledge. In terms of basic identity,
the human being is not unique. Awareness and sensitivity are shared
by all sentient beings.

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